Maintaining My Cool
by theUglySpirit
Summary: Tim is not one for ambiguity. Things either are or they aren't in Tim's world, and he's always the one who gets to say which. The only reason I can think of that Tim would waffle about a girl's looks is if he does like her and does think she's pretty, but she's already shot him down. T for language. ONE-SHOT.


SE Hinton owns The Outsiders and the Shepard clan. "Maintaining My Cool" is a 1966 song by The Sonics. Rated T for language.

June 2011 TWSOTT Rumble- Secrets. I forgot I had this one. Just a fluffy character sketch kind of thing.

**Maintaining My Cool**

"I don't know. I guess she's pretty."

It's the 'I don't know' that's a sure sign that he thinks she is. Tim is not one for ambiguity. Things either are or they aren't in Tim's world, and he's always the one who gets to say which.

The only reason I can think of that Tim would waffle about a girl's looks is if he does like her and does think she's pretty, but she's already shot him down.

I hate to say I don't get what women see in Tim because we look an awful lot alike. If they don't see it in him, they sure as shit ain't going to see it in me. You'd think it would work in my favor not having that scar, but chicks seem to dig that along with the bad tattoos on his fingers and his perpetual indifference to their having a good time.

"You guess?" I can dare to say it because I'm out of his reach and he can't smack me upside the back of my head. It's too hot to throw down over it. The ground is shimmering, it's so fucking hot. I'd fry if I laid on the hood of the car to watch the girl in the park. Instead I'm sitting in the shade leaning up against Tim's car with my feet propped up against the door of the car next to us.

This is how the scene with the girl first started. She came back to her car to get something. Either she has a pack of kids- which I'd guess not judging by her build- or she has a summer babysitting job. I can see her now sitting on a blanket in the grass watching about three of them run around like damned monkeys. She's got a baby on the blanket with her. She leans down and talks to it and her dark hair falls in around it like a tent. I wonder if it's cool in there.

I was sitting here, in the shade, when she came back to her car. She was parked here when we arrived. She couldn't see me sitting on the ground and I surprised her a little.

"Holy shit," she said in spite of that baby being glued to her hip, and I thought to myself _she ain't a Soc then_.

I stood up, brushing the parking lot off my ass, to get out of her way.

"Sorry," I said. "Sorry to surprise you."

"That's okay," she said and smiled.

She opened the front door to her car, set the baby down on the front seat and leaned in over him or her. She began digging around, and for a good minute and a half, I had a real nice view of her ass to meditate on. She was wearing a pleated skirt, one of those that's sort of fluffy and you can't really tell what a girl's got underneath it unless she leans enough in one direction to flatten it out against her body.

And she was doing that for me- who knows if it was intentional. I kind of doubt it. When she set the baby down on the seat, the kid started to cry. The seat was probably hot or maybe s/he was just happier riding around on that girl's hip. Either way, she was talking to the baby the whole time she was digging under the seat. She may as well have recited the Gettysburg Address to that kid. I was the furthest thing from her mind.

"Aw, jeez," she was saying. "'s the matter? Hold on, just hold on…"

And I was thinking about how much I'd love to be holding on to that when Tim- still seated behind the wheel of his car- tapped my elbow through the open window.

"What?" I said to him.

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head at me. "Stealth- it's completely foreign to you, isn't it?"

_Whatever, asshole._ I raised my arms to physically indicate _what?_ to him.

The look he gave me in return said he didn't approve of my gesture either, but also that he was giving up. He nodded towards the other side of the park at another car, framed in my view by the monkey bars.

The car had just pulled in to park. The dust is still settling around it and the heat is rippling up off the hood like the dust is from the ground. It's a dark green car. I think it's a GTO. I'm not good with makes and models, but I know it's got a hell of an engine under there.

I recognize the driver: River King Wally McKittrick. He's a carbon-copy emotionally-stunted, egomaniac of a gang leader like my brother. In an alternate universe somewhere, he's probably sitting in his car watching us to see who we're dealing to and calculating whether the amount dealt is worth jumping the other guy for once we've left. I wonder whose watching over all of us.

My thoughts veer back to the girl. I sneak a look at her to see if she's still bent over. She's moved, though. She's seated now, baby on her lap, rummaging in the glove compartment. _Damnit, Tim_.

She senses my attention and looks up at me. _Damnit, me_. The baby lurches forward towards the papers in the glove box, though, and she's distracted again. She finds what she's looking for- a pencil- and she and the baby get out of the car. I step out of her way, smiling, and watch her swish back to the blanket on the grass. The baby watches me over her shoulder until they move out of range and something closer distracts it.

"You know her?" I ask Tim.

"Who?" Please, Tim. How many other females of any species have paid us so much as a wary, passing glance since we've been sitting here? Unless you have it on good council that the squirrel running up and down the tree in front of our car is also female, that girl is the only "her" I could be talking about.

"Her," I say and point to her with an unlit cigarette.

"Know of her." He's lying. Lying and withholding. Something happened that didn't fly in Tim's favor or he'd own up.

Because it's hot, and I'm bored, and because I damned-well can, I press it. "Know what of her?"

The hand reaches through the window to the car and snatches the cigarette. He lights it, but doesn't give it back.

"I know plenty."

"You know her from school? You know her biblically? You know her brothers and they told you to stay clear of her?"

"Biblically?" He asks me. "What does that mean?"

"Means you fucked her." I'm surprised that Tim doesn't know that. It sort of makes me happy that I had to be the one to tell him.

Tim says, "Where'd you hear that? You damned-sure didn't read it. How does biblical equal fucking? Wouldn't anything having to do with the Bible kind of point to not fucking?"

"There's lots of fucking in the Bible. Just ain't in church."

Now Tim actually does move. He turns his head to peer up through the open window at me, to look at me like I'm out of my mind. He still doesn't offer any insight on him and the girl.

I take a step back to lean against the side of her car, facing Tim. I cross my arms and kick at the door of his car.

"Come on."

"What? Why do you need to know? It ain't important. That's what important right now. Get your head in it, fucker." He flicks ashes in the direction of the GTO.

I hate when he underestimates me like this. I can pay attention to both that GTO _and_ what I'm convinced is an awesome story behind Tim and the girl on the blanket.

"Any of those her kids?" I ask him.

He shrugs.

Because I know it will piss him off, I ask, "Any of 'em yours?"

The sky is darkening above us. The air starts to cool. I thought it might have just been the chill from the glare Tim just gave me, but when I look back across the park again, there's dark clouds gathering above it.

"Fuck," he grumbles. "Going to rain."

"Yeah, she'd better gather up them kids. I'll ask her about you all when she comes back."

That rattles him. He takes a swipe at me, trying to catch the hem of my shirt. Still leaning against the girl's car, I'm a couple inches out of his reach.

"Get in the car, fucker," he grumbles.

He thinks I'm going to believe he's suddenly concerned whether or not I get rained on? Right, no way am I getting back in the car with him now.

"Get in, Curly. He's moving."

McKittrick is getting back into the GTO. The engine growls when he starts it up. The ground shakes beneath my feet. It's probably thunder from that storm moving in, but I'd like to believe it's the car. That would be sweet.

She's herding those kids towards the car like she's moving cattle, swishing the blanket towards them. I seize the moment and run around the back of her car and meet her at the driver's side. I open the back door for the bigger kids to pile in and then stand there holding the driver's door for her like we're heading out for a date.

"Thanks," she says. She's got a pretty smile. She has pretty, full lips. I wonder what it would feel like to kiss them. I'd bet crown and country that Tim knows.

"How do you know Tim?" I ask her as she ducks down into the car with the baby.

"Tim who?" She's as bad a liar as he is. She can't keep her face blank. She blinks. There's a little angry twitch in her nostrils. I shut the door for her and jog back to Tim's car.

As soon as I'm in, he asks, "what'd she say?"

"She said 'Tim who'."

He snorts quietly and shakes his head. He might be smiling. It's barely there. He waits for the girl and her car full of kids to pull out before throws his car in reverse and turns around, stretching his arm across the seat. He waits for the girl to drive out to the main road and disappear before he turns us in the opposite direction to follow Wally.


End file.
